How Does Faulkner Use Humor In A Rose For Emily

“A Rose for Emily” is a southern gothic short story written by William Faulkner. Faulkner was originally inspired by his family and hometown to write. Most of his stories include irony, social issues, and decay, past and present, gruesome and etc.; However, Faulkner also integrates humor in a way that it is often referred as “orthodox and subversive” (Carothers and Sheldon 438). In this story it mainly focuses about a women’s life as a gentility that wants to continue to live by her own free will. The author uses comic to enlighten the mood of the reader and most importantly to reveal a dominant trait within the character despite of the gruesome. After Emily’s father passes away Colonel Sartoris invents a tale of her father loaning money previously to the town, so that no one would ask any questions about why Miss Emily’s taxes were remitted (Faulkner 714). It was his way as repaying. As time went by Colonel Sartoris is dead and now …show more content…
When she is buying the arsenic poison the employee questions her what she will be using it for because it is the law that she tells him what it will be used for, but “Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up.” (Faulkner 719). All along in the story Miss Emily is very ignorant with the rules and norms of society that she has to live by. She never nor wants to follow none, so her way of doing so is by being dominant. Faulkner, observes that “a comic character is generally comic in proportion to his ignorance of himself” Carothers and Sheldon explain how in a previous story written by Faulkner uses it humor within the character to portray their own ignorance among themselves. In “A Rose for Emily” He also uses it especially through it when she purchase